IDC: wearables market grows 8.8% in Q1, but buyers focus on cheaper models

The wearables market grew 8.8% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to Q1 last year. However, the market is continuing to shift towards cheaper models as this was the fifth straight quarter of declining Average Selling Price (ASP).

This insight comes from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker. The analysts say that consumers don’t see much point in spending extra cash on premium models and mostly stick to mid-range and entry-level devices, hence the declining ASP.

But once advanced sensors, ones that can measure blood pressure or glucose, hit the market, things will change and we may see premium models go up in popularity. In the meantime, small regional brands are having a heyday as their low-cost offerings enjoy a period of popularity.

Looking at individual brands, Apple is still the top dog, but its market share shrunk noticeably (down almost 19% year-over-year). The analysts blame the sales ban and the subsequent removal of features for this disruption, but it’s also partially Apple’s fault. The wearables segment includes headphones too, not just smartwatches, and when was the last time Apple launched new headphones? The AirPods 3rd gen came out in late 2021 and the AirPods Pro 2nd gen in late 2022. The AirPods Max are even older and hail from 2020.

Xiaomi is growing rapidly and is up almost 44% year over year. The company always has fresh affordable products, but its return to Wear OS was quite successful too – according to IDC, Xiaomi is now the third largest Wear OS maker.

Huawei elbowed out Samsung from third place – this is attributed to the company’s resurgence in the smartphone business, which apparently raised the fortunes of the wearable division too.

As for Samsung, the Galaxy Fit3 proved popular thanks to its lower price, but its success was not enough to offset the declining Galaxy Watch sales. At least not enough to keep ahead of Huawei. On the plus side, Samsung’s Q1 growth of 13% is still better than the industry average of 8.8%.

Fifth place is held by Imagine Marketing – you may not have heard of it, but you may have heard of its “boAt” brand. Their headphones are doing well (up 17.5%), but the smartwatches fell off a cliff (down 61.3%).

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